621–630 of 1001 posts
I'm totally fine with people attempting to build new fission plants. More power to them! I just don't see it happening. They cost too much and take too long. Not holding my breath here.
By some weird accident they stop being that expensive and long to build when you cross the border into China.
Article claims Germany is beginning to shift. I wouldn’t count on that. Despite having to import all of their energy aside from renewables, there is a wide-spread suspicion of nuclear here. The CDU made a lot of noise about it while they were in the opposition, but turning those closed plants back on is highly unlikely. Very costly and I’m not certain the expertise can be hired.
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In France they aren't, Germany neither
Wrong on both counts. The only wrinkle is that when the German government made electricity production from nuclear power illegal, it had to take over some of those responsibilities, for obvious reasons. It also took over the money that had been saved up thus far, which is almost certainly more than needed to cover the costs. Well unless those costs are driven up to infinity with ever more creative mechanisms by polit…
> Finland just built a site for around €1 billion.
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I disagree with cheapest. If you factor in twenty years build time and nuclear waste disposal, the whole thing is not economically viable. Then there's a problem with nuclear fuel. The sources are mostly countries you don't want to depend on. You are of course right with your assessment that nuclear is green, safe and eco-friendly. That's a hard one to swallow for a lot of eco activists.
Long build times are often the result of constantly changing regulations. Also it’s interesting that build times in Japan are almost 2 times smaller than in US.
The exemption being France and maybe China?
France did a programme of nuclear power stations rather than the 1 or 2 offs that seem to be the norm elsewhere and that seems to have worked pretty well.
I'd be surprised if HPC is competitive with solar + wind + BESS when it comes online but I could well be wrong
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A country is not forced to have AI farms running in it. Building giant powerplant for the AI tech (possible) bubble not seems wise. The plant will take 5 - 10 years to build, who knows what demands AI will have at that point. SO let some countries that want to spent enormous amounts of their energy on AI do so, adn the rest can connect to those.
> who knows what demands AI will have at that point This is true for any investment pretty much.
AI is also just super young, has apparently zero mote, requires insane amounts of hardware that basically becomes useless after a couple of years, and has promised, over and over, the AI revolution is just around the corner multiple times without ever delivering.
I think a good exercise for the reader is to reflect on why they were ever against nuclear power in the first place. Nuclear power was always the greenest, most climate friendly, safest, cheapest (save for what we do to ourselves), most energy dense, most long lasting, option.
> most long lasting ...which also applies to nuclear waste unfortunately, and that answers part of your question - e.g. as irrational as it may be, but at least in Germany nobody wants to have a nuclear waste storage in their backyard (the other part of the answer is Chornobyl - and for the same 'not in my backyard' reason). Also when looking at recent years, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have a few large nucle…
Nobody would notice the difference.
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It is expensive because of the regulatory burdens associated with making it unreasonably safe. By unreasonably safe I mean that harms predicted by radiation models are unscientific, and death rate expectations are far lower than alternative power generation technologies. Nuclear fuel storage is relatively straightforward, and volumes have potential to be reduced 30x through recycling.
Nuclear power plants require international laws and international cooperation for insurance, because one serious incident, such as Chornobyl, can wipe a continent. In Ukraine, profits from all nuclear plants will cover damages, caused by Chornobyl, in 1000-5000 years IF nothing more will happen to Chornobyl or other an other nuclear power plant in those years, which is unlikely.
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Long build times are often the result of constantly changing regulations. Also it’s interesting that build times in Japan are almost 2 times smaller than in US.
Nuclear doesn't have a great record in other countries either. I might have the wrong figures but Hinkley Points C is over 2 times over budget and likely to be 5+ years late. The exemption being France and maybe China? France did a programme of nuclear power stations rather than the 1 or 2 offs that seem to be the norm elsewhere and that seems to have worked pretty well. I'd be surprised if HPC is competitive with so…
Nuclear power is clean but VERY EXPENSIVE. Dispatble solar and wind are about 1/5 the price of new nuclear.
It is expensive because we choose to make it expensive. It is regulation pushing safety levels far beyond other industries, and far beyond science (radiation is far less harmful than regulatory models suggest)
But even from a very matter of fact point of view, I'd rather have 1000 people die every year for 20 years, than have 20.000 people die on a single bad day/week. The economic and social impact is far, far bigger when it can't be "spread out" over multiple years.
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I disagree with cheapest. If you factor in twenty years build time and nuclear waste disposal, the whole thing is not economically viable. Then there's a problem with nuclear fuel. The sources are mostly countries you don't want to depend on. You are of course right with your assessment that nuclear is green, safe and eco-friendly. That's a hard one to swallow for a lot of eco activists.
sure state funded solar panel that you need to change every 10 year and batteries with rare minerals are cheaper.